The Daily Mail has attacked the level of chief executive pay at Save the Children International and Marie Stopes International.
In an article published yesterday the Mail said it had emerged that the highest earner at Save the Children, believed to be chief executive Jasmine Whitbread, received £234,000 a year, while the highest earner at international sexual health charity Marie Stopes received more than £290,000.
The figures were taken from the charities’ December 2012 accounts, filed last year in September and October respectively.
The Mail and The Daily Telegraph published a series of articles last year criticising pay levels in the 14 international aid charities that make up the Disasters Emergency Committee.
The Mail article said the latest figures had resulted in “fresh demands to curb the salaries of fat cat bosses” from Priti Patel, Conservative MP for Witham and Charlie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover and Deal.
The Public Administration Select Committee, which monitors charity regulation and legislation, launched an investigation into charity chief executive pay last year. At the time both MPs were members of the committee, but Elphicke has since stepped down.
Charity infrastructure bodies said public concern over chief executive pay was an issue that the charity sector needed to address, and that large charities needed to communicate better on the subject, but that attacks by politicians and journalists were “not helpful” to the debate.
“We’re being portrayed as having a clandestine agenda and keeping secrets,” said Asheem Singh, head of policy at Acevo. “That’s not the case at all.
“It would be helpful if politicians didn’t leap to attack charities, and recognised that we’re making an effort to address this.”
Jay Kennedy, head of policy and research at the Directory of Social Change, said that articles such as the one in the Mail created a “very slanted” view of the sector which “damages support and trust for all charities”.
But he said the sector had to explain itself.
“We need to be more public about explaining why we pay these salaries,” he said. “I think too many charities have just hoped it will go away, but it probably won’t. We have to make the case for ourselves.”
A spokesman for Save the Children said Whitbread's role was “comparable with the head of a major UN agency or senior director of the World Bank” and needed to be properly remunerated.
“While we do not attempt to match corporate or UN packages we still need to attract the right talent and leadership skills to ensure that Save the Children International can continue to improve and deliver on its mission for children,” he said.
